Why NFA 34 Sucks
This started as a comment over here but WordPress blogs think I’m spam. The NFA was one of the first times NRA got involved in legislation. The original bill, IIRC, pretty much mimics what DC’s gun laws were pre-Heller (i.e., any thing capable of firing more than 12 rounds without reloading was a machine gun and other things DC was famous for). The NRA, IIRC, got involved because the law was drafted so poorly and didn’t seem to know anything about guns (now, they just pass laws even if they’re drafted by people who don’t know guns). The intent was to regulate gangster weapons, like MGs, sawed off, and handguns. Handguns were dropped from regulation and suppressors (which were, frankly, fairly new at the time) were added because folks were poaching game on federal land.
Not the best solution but, at that time, a gun control bill was going to be passed.
October 27th, 2010 at 9:34 am
Ive said it before and I’ll say it again….
Letting people that know nothing about guns write gun laws is like letting people who have never driven a car write the traffic laws… You are gonna end of with a bunch of stupid laws, and you are gonna get a lot of people killed.
October 27th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
From what I read, substituting “silencer” for “handgun” was a last ditch defensive move by the NRA.
October 27th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
And forever more branded the NRA as Quislings or Vichey, depending on your bent. Every millimeter given is one that is damn near impossible to get back and there is NEVER anything really given in return. Somebodies definition of compromise is twisted.
October 27th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
My layman’s opinion is the 34 law is clearly unconstitutional. Testimony before Congress, which should inform any divination of Congressional intent, was that an outright ban would have been unconstitutional but that a tax was permissible. But when the “tax” and the penalties for non-payment substantially burden the exercise of a right to the extent that the general public as well as the “taxing agency” understand it to be a ban, then you’re into unconstitutional territory.
The practical problem is, even “our side” of the supreme court starts from the assumption that unregulated machine guns are bad, therefore regulation of machine guns is constitutional. I think it will take another generation of scholarship to lay the groundwork to have this out. A court case now would only saddle us with a losing precedent.
Separately, I’m basically with RC. It took a few generations, but what was understood even by its backers to be a ploy in 1934 was adopted as a baseline even by many modern “conservatives.”
October 27th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Only way we can end this is to get more and more shooters using NFA weapons.
October 27th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
It is hard for a modern to wrap their mind around 1934. The most prosperous period in American history came to an end with the Crash of ’29, and bumbling attempts to “restore normality” had turned a two year “panic” into what was then a five year disaster with no end in sight.
In addition, Roosevelt had a distinct policy that was extremely detrimental to non-Europeans, who bitterly resented them. (See Bruce Bartlett’s “Wrong on Race for an overview of that aspect of the Roosevelt presidency.)
Perhaps the best way to get any sort of handle on the general conditions in ’34 is to go to shorpy.com and search for “Depression.” What you find is pretty much how it was. When one of my generation says “we were eating each other,” that is uncomfortably close to the truth.
As a result, many in the ruling political class were desperately afraid of the people. While the pols still respected the Bill of Rights, “something had to be done.” And the first result was the National Firearms Act.
Which still did not go far enough for many. There was a great deal of demand for universal registration and licensing as late as 1938, resulting in another gun control law. The only thing that stopped outright R/L was a number of cool heads among the political class who clearly saw what was happening in Europe.
And the lady says I must shut down.
Stranger
October 27th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
I think that in comparison, the Hughes Amendment that bans all machine guns manufactured after 1986 is much worse than the NFA law. At least you could still get a gun under NFA.
The $200 tax was prohibitive at the time, but now its nothing compared to the price of pre-ban transferable guns. When a transferable M-16 costs $12,000 what’s another $200?
We should work on getting rid of Hughes first, then the NFA. One problem will be many of those gunnies who invested tens of thousands of dollars in transferable guns will not want to see their “investment” go up in smoke. (Personally, I’d rather lose the investment and be able to buy one on the cheap, but that’s just me.)